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doughnuts

Anyone who’s English has watched the Great British Bake Off at some point since it began in 2010, last years contestant Ruby Tandoh (runner up to Francis) did so well on the programme she now writes a baking segment for The Guardian and has an online blog (rubyandthekitchen.co.uk). This doughnut recipe is from her blog. It is delicious! And really easy (don’t be daunted) to make.

I have to mention I’ve only used half the recipe (as mentioned before my parents are gluten free so a full recipe would be a waste) and I changed the method to combining the dough just because it’s the way I like to bake with yeast you’ll notice both methods are here!

Ruby’s method says to put the dry ingredients in a bowl, add the milk and butter then mix, if you have a mixer with dough hooks, use these and mix for 5 minutes) otherwise get stuck in and knead it the old fashioned way with both your paws!

What I did; put the yeast and sugar into the warm milk and leave to activate for 15 minutes. Weigh all other ingredients into a mixing bowl (except the melted butter). After the 15 minutes yeast activation, mix all ingredients together and knead by hand for 10 minutes (no slacking 😉)

Pop the dough back into the mixing bowl and cover with a damp cloth or cling film. Prove at room temperature for 1&1/2-2 hours.

Once doubled in size put the dough onto a floured surface and roll out till it’s about 1/8th inch thick (the dough will shrink during this process, continue to stretch it out with the rolling pin and it’ll come along). Using cutters (I don’t know the difference but Ruby mentions pastry cutters… are they the same as biscuit/cookie cutters?!) cut your rings out, (large cutter then small one for the ring) keep your inners! They’re delicious little fried balls-yumm! Place your cut out doughnuts onto trays lined with grease proof paper, cover with cling film and leave to raise again for 45 minutes!

15 minutes before the end of the proving either turn your deep fat fryer to 190 degrees or heat 1 litre of cooking oil in a heavy based pan/ wok at the highest setting (or better yet use a sugar thermometer to get the perfect temperature!). Prepare your glazes or sugars, I had regular caster sugar, a cinnamon sugar (light brown sugar 5:1 ratio, or how strong you like your cinnamon), water icing (quantities of 25g icing sugar -1tsp water) and chocolate icing (25g icing sugar, 1tbsp cocoa powder 1tbsp water). Be imaginative!

Now the frying! Weeyyyy, drop the doughnuts one at a time into the pan (don’t cram them in because they do still expand) they’ll float on the surface, let them bob about for a minute or so until you can see them browning. Using chop sticks, flip the doughnuts over to brown on the other side, once done turn out onto a plate (pop a piece of kitchen towel onto the plate to absorb the fat from the doughnuts) and continue on your way.

As the next ones fry dip, dab and dash your doughnuts with your sugars or glazes! My particular favourite was the chocolate!

I made a few whole doughnuts, the jam in the middle type, but they were less dough and more wholey, they’d have been perfect filled with a thick custard! Which I’ll try next time I make them, but for now, just stick to the ring 🙂